A brief description of product design and development of corrosion-resistant coatings

China Coatings Online News
In today's fast-changing anti-corrosion coatings and coating technology, a mature and reliable anti-corrosion coating products that can bring good reputation and economic benefits to manufacturers often require design and development of input, design and development output, design and development verification, design and development validation, design and development of change control processes, which is also the requirements of ISO9001 quality management system standards. Here, we combine these requirements with the industry characteristics of corrosion-resistant coatings to explore the basic ideas of product design and development of corrosion-resistant coatings for the reference of engineers engaged in this work.
Usually, the introduction of an anti-corrosion coating product usually goes through the following process or stage:
1, research and development plan
A long-term development of anti-corrosion coating manufacturers should have their own short, medium and long-term product development plan, so as to avoid market opportunities and require the technical department to quickly launch new products in the short term, which is undoubtedly a headache for research and development engineers. And in this case, the introduction of new products, its applicability and reliability often lack of validation, which will bring a lot of risk to the enterprise.
product development programs are usually decided by the company's top leadership, but communication is important in the process that sales and technology departments, with their own knowledge of markets and technology, can advise and influence their decisions. The implementation of a research and development program that exceeds the support of the enterprise's own resources will face too many difficulties and will make the research and development engineers lack confidence. Therefore, an effective product development plan usually takes into account market demand and the market areas in which the company has market advantages, as well as the company's own resource support.
Top management generally tends to develop development plans based on market areas (industries), and by industry, the larger market areas for corrosion-resistant coatings include:
(1), ships
(2), containers
(3), offshore structures, seaport facilities
(4), petrochemicals (tanks and pipelines)
(5), heavy machinery (including port machinery, complete sets of equipment, engineering machinery, Cranes, etc.)
(6), bridges, transportation facilities
(7), electricity (thermal power, wind power, nuclear power, etc.), energy
(9), hydraulic structure
(8), construction steel structure
(10), other
these industries, but also have different corrosion environment and corrosion protection requirements of structural units, need a variety of corrosion-resistant coating systems, some industries appear very complex.
And research and development engineers should design and develop corrosion-resistant coatings based on the following considerations:
(1), corrosion environment: in addition to iso12944-2 listed 6 atmospheric corrosion environment and 3 impregnated environment, there are some special corrosion environment, such as tank and pipe lining (non-water medium impregnation), thermal surface, mechanical action (e.g. wear), and these corrosion stress compound;
(2), corrosion-resistant requirements, including requirements for corrosion-resistant coatings and coating systems, are often reflected in various standards and specifications that research and development engineers need to find and study. The requirements of target users are particularly important when some emerging industries often do not have such standards.
(3), surface type and surface treatment: surfaces commonly encountered include carbon steel, stainless steel, metalized surfaces (galvanized, hot-soaked zinc, zinc sprayed, sprayed aluminum or its alloys), non-ferrous metal surfaces (copper, aluminum, etc.), concrete surfaces, coated surfaces (e.g. surfaces coated with workshop primers or other coated surfaces). Different surface treatment methods, cleanliness and roughness of treated surfaces can also affect coating design;
(4), type of work (new or repair): defined and conciliatory in ISO12944 standards;
(5), construction methods and drying methods: the products developed must be adapted to the construction methods and coating environmental conditions prevailing in the industry;
(6), cost and market prices;
(7), other factors such as special functional requirements, environmental performance (VOC and hazardous heavy metal content limits, etc.);
it is worth noting that because top management usually tends to develop development plans based on market segments (industries), and research and development engineers design products based on these factors, the two are not the same. Therefore, as a research and development engineer, both must be transformed, and the successful transformation is based on our thorough understanding of the various structural corrosion-resistant requirements in these industries.
therefore, we must move on to the second phase:
2, Survey Understanding (Technical aspects)
1, the industry's requirements for corrosion-resistant coatings and coating systems mentioned in the research and development plan should be as understood as possible.
2, understand the current situation of products to be developed or improved, including peer products, foreign products, etc., including prices, product performance, the more comprehensive the better.
3, understand the market access threshold (technical barriers), some are product technical requirements and some necessary certification, identification and so on.
is often difficult for some new engineers, and even for senior engineers, it is not possible to know all the industry areas very well. It is recommended that corrosion-resistant coating engineers should:
1, collect and establish their own standards, data, databases, especially the industry standard specifications for corrosion-resistant coatings and coating requirements, so that they can be invoked whenever needed.
2, sales to the company, customer service personnel consultation and understanding;
3, access to similar cases or similar projects of anti-corrosion technical specifications,
4, with senior industry exchanges, United Coatings Network is a very good platform for communication.
An anti-corrosion coatings manufacturing company with an international perspective requires that its products comply with international standards, specifications and regulatory requirements, so a good engineer should also understand the standards and specifications of organizations including ISO, ASTM, SSPC/NACE, NORSOK, API, IMO, etc. There are also some developed countries issued laws and regulations related to anti-corrosion coatings.
then, take care of what you know, summarize the information and prepare a feasibility report, which will be the third phase below.
3. Setting goals
We need to translate what we know in the second phase into the characteristics, performance indicators and cost control of anti-corrosion coating products and coating systems, including:
1, the design of the product (the applicable corrosion environment, type of work, surface type and surface treatment, construction methods and coating environmental conditions) special functions, environmental protection, etc.);
2, liquid paint properties: including solid parts (weight and volume), specific gravity, VOC and harmful heavy metal content, viscosity, fineness, color range, anti-hanging properties, storage stability, cost, etc., for anti-corrosion coatings, solid parts design is very important.
3, construction performance, including a variety of construction methods and parameters, construction and drying curing environmental conditions, drying time, coating interval requirements, maximum and minimum dry film thickness and so on.
4, single coating system performance indicators: including adhesion, hardness, gloss, flexibility (bend resistance), impact resistance, wear resistance, salt spray resistance, moisture and heat resistance, chemical media resistance, cathode stripping resistance, color and gloss hold, low flame performance and so on.
5, compatibility with other coatings, and the performance of the composite coating. Many industries or standards require coating performance certifications for the entire coating system, so we need to select the fore and rear coating varieties recommended for this corrosion-resistant coating and consider the performance of these composite coatings.
, item 1 is of the utmost importance, while the other is the specificization of goal 1.
Of course, these parameters are only expected goals, whether they can be achieved depending on the results of trials and tests that will be repeated in the next phase, and sometimes we need to revise our objectives, but the key target parameters or mandatory standards requirements should be met."
, the test and inspection phase
this is a stage that requires a lot of time and effort on the part of the research and development engineers. These include:
1, the selection of technical routes, including corrosion-resistant factors, substations, pigments, solvents, additives and other ingredients of the initial selection;
2, find raw material suppliers and learn more about their performance;
3, select raw materials to determine the basic formulation and process;
4, make sample paints from different formulations, test their performance and continuously screen and optimize them,
5, determine the final formula and process, test their performance comprehensively, including pilot and large-scale production test results.
6, certification, including in-house laboratory performance testing certification and third-party certification if required, may require repeated work.
Whether this work can be completed quickly and effectively depends on the theoretical level of engineers in the research and development team, research and development experience, familiarity with raw materials, familiarity with test method standards, communication and cooperation between the various personnel in the research and development department, and so on.
Developing a good work habit will benefit you for life, and for some engineers, the following suggestions may be useful to you:
1, think first, guide practice theoretically, learn more about the performance of raw materials, and do more basic formula calculations;
2, the operation strictly in accordance with the standard or scientific methods to maximize the reliability of the results,
3, the use of scientific test comparison methods, such as orthosectant test methods,
4, the use of scientific methods for statistical analysis of the data collected;
5, to develop as much detail and perfect record as possible, the preparation of test reports should meet the requirements of the relevant standards, the record of these test results will become the basis for the next stage of technical documentation.
5. Technical documentation
All kinds of technical documents are an important part of the design and development output, which will show the results of your work in front of people, these documents usually include:
1, product description (PDS);
2, material safety data manual (MSDS);
3, product technical standards or performance data;
4, recommended coating system data or recommended coating support schemes;
5, performance indicators and test reports of commonly used coating systems (composite coatings) related to the products developed;
6, production process documents (including raw material procurement and acceptance standards, product formulations, production processes, key factors and quality control requirements, factory inspection and testing requirements for finished products, etc.);
7, if certified by a third party, there will be certification reports and certificates.
the quality of documents prepared by
reflects the level of expertise of an enterprise, which should be given sufficient attention by engineers, and a company that values technical management will have mechanisms for writing, reviewing and approving such documents to maximize the quality of documents. A company with an international perspective, its external product information in addition to different language versions, the preparation of formats, content and data provided in accordance with international standards and practices.
6. Marketing
A mature technical engineer should have a good sense of the market, and then you need to do some promotional work for the product you develop in order to promote the transformation of your labor results into corporate profits. These include:
1, production of models for promotion, photographs, etc. (especially for comparative experimental images of performance).
2, write some promotional materials, send some promotional articles (networks or periodicals), participate in some promotional meetings,
3, if necessary, organize new product appraisal meetings or new product launches, patent applications;
4, conduct training to introduce the product to sales staff, service personnel
5, product cost and price description;
6, if necessary, visit the target customers to introduce new products and anti-corrosion solutions.
when your promotion is effective and the product is on the market, you can gather market feedback and create the conditions for continuous improvement.
7, market feedback and product improvement
a newly developed anti-corrosion coating products can not be ten beautiful, after entering the market must feedback some bad information, research and development engineers should take the initiative to the relevant departments (mainly markets and services) to obtain and analyze this information.
information may include, but is not limited to, the following:
1, the price is not competitive with the same type of products on the market;
2, too limited applicability;
3, construction problems or unexpiced coating defects appear;
4, third-party inspection found performance indicators defects,
5, should meet the relevant standards or performance indicators requirements have occurred beyond the performance of the product itself changes,
6, storage stability issues
of course, there will be good market feedback. We need to analyze this information one by one to analyze the potential for improvement and the impact on other key performance. To determine whether the original product needs to be improved or to introduce an improved product on the basis of the product.
There is no denying the importance of recipes, but if it is not enough to understand research and development as just producing a formula, for new engineers, the work described at any of these stages can be something you need to learn and understand.
A good product design and development process also effectively combines other aspects of the company's system and process design, including procurement, manufacturing, inspection and testing, sales, services, and so on, and become an integral part of the entire quality management system and the company management system.
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